Alternate Catching Fire Ending
by thekeeperofkeys
Summary: An alternate ending to Catching Fire where Katniss, Peeta and Johanna are captured by the Capitol rather than the rebels. It also has kind of a different rescue mission ;) Please R&R! (I shall get onto my other stories as well). Disclaimer: none of the characters belong to me, they all belong to Suzanne Collins! :))
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

I hear explosions erupt around me. The earth seems to vibrate. Trees catch fire, inflamed leaves fall graciously around me. Water ebbs around my head. I'm trying to think how there is water around me and then I realize that the body of water surrounding the Cornucopia must have imploded at one point. Trees fall down, making explosive sounds. The sky is illuminated with multicolored fireworks. I make note of all the colors I can see, hoping to soften my gory death. Purple. Light blue. Green. Yellow. I spot a hovercraft above me. Pink. Two peacekeepers attached to chains descend from it. Red. When they reach the ground, they detach themselves from the chains and walk over to me, guns clutched to their chest, as though I might jump up and attack them. Dark blue. I see four ropes drop down from the hovercraft. The peacekeepers each take two, attaching one to every one of my extended limbs. They attach themselves to their chains once again, and all three of us start to ascend, towards the hovercraft. Each peacekeeper holds me steady, so as not to let me lean too far to one side. We reach the hovercraft and are ushered in by more peacekeepers. Before I faint, I catch a glimpse of a pair of snake-like eyes watching me and the scent of roses intermingled with blood.

I wake in a room, illuminated with blue light. It's a fairly simple space, with merely three other beds situated across from mine. One of them remains vacated but the other two have Johanna and Peeta seated on them, peacefully. Peeta notices my awakening and watches as I examine the room. Johanna watches as well. I get out of the bed and try to walk towards Peeta. That's when I hit it. But what exactly is 'it?' It's some invisible wall, separating us, like the Jabberjay sector of the arena. Peeta touches the wall surrounding his bed with one index finger. A slight pulse emanates from the epicenter of his touch.

"The Capitol found us before the rebels did," explains Johanna.

"Rebels?" I ask.

"You explain," she says, indicating Peeta with an effortless hand gesture. He looks up at me.

"Katniss… Plutarch Heavensbee… he's not… he's not on the Capitol's side," says Peeta.

"I don't understand."

"Look… all we know is that there is a revolution taking place. Half the tributes in the arena knew about it and half didn't. That's why the morphling sacrificed herself for me. When Johanna cut your arm, she took your tracker out. She was hoping that would help the rebels find you faster than the Capitol, but they didn't. All Johanna knows about it is that Plutarch is pretty high up on the ladder of authority. But he has authority over the rebels… not the Capitol," says Peeta. This is so much to take in.

"But… but…" I don't know what to say.

"You're the Mockingjay, Katniss. The symbol of the rebellion. Simple as that. The plan was always to keep you alive. To make sure you survived. No one else," says Johanna, "and we failed. The Capitol has captured us. Well… they've captured you. And that's what's important. We failed to keep you safe."

"Well, where are the rebels? They must have some sort of base or something," I say.

"The rebels are scattered through the Districts," says Johanna. She doesn't offer much because she knows that President Snow is certainly having every moment of this recorded. I still can't tell whether she knows or not. We remain in silence for the next few moments and then an announcement from a speaker in the room breaks it.

"We have reached the landing pod, please prepare for landing," the voice says. I can feel the hovercraft moving downward. Peeta sits in silence, but Johanna looks as though she's going to be sick. I feel a small bump and I know we've hit the ground. What now? Are we going to be executed? Or are they going to drag our deaths out? Televise them so that maybe the rebels will give up to have us back. They wouldn't though. Would they? Like Johanna said, I am the Mockingjay… maybe they would surrender? But then the rebellion would go to waste. Three peacekeepers with guns walk into the room through a sliding door. Each of them approaches a small spot next to the invisible wall of each of our beds, holds up a card and disables it. My peacekeeper then roughly seizes me by the arm and parades me out of the room. We turn left with Peeta and Johanna following us. I can hear wind howling up ahead. We must be high up. When we reach the opening, they shove each of us out of the bottom of the hovercraft and our bare feet land painfully on gravel. We seem to be on top of some sort of building. I sneak a peak at the edge of the building and notice that we are really high up. I can see cars moving far below us. They seem like ants at this high a point. I turn my head back to the direction we are walking and see a solitary door up ahead. We are shoved through and then it's just stairs. Thankfully the stairs move only downward. We continue walking down the stairs and at about the hundredth flight we halt. My peacekeeper steps ahead of me and uses the same card he used for my bed on the door in front of us. We are pushed through and all I see is white. The entire room is completely white and polished, without the slightest hint of dirtiness. Are they going to blind us to death? The room isn't just plain though. There are eight holding cells on each side and, in between the rows of cells, a white linoleum floor that acts as a hallway. Horizontal bars separate the cells from the hall and each other. We are each taken to one cell. Peeta's is situated next to mine, and Johanna's across from mine. We sit in silence for a while. There's nothing to say really. I don't think any of us could think of anything to break the silence with anyway. We are so devastated and yet clueless with the current situation. After what feels like hours, the door opens again and I see a dark figure surrounded by three peacekeepers. When the peacekeepers separate, they reveal President Snow. He stands amongst the mob of peacekeepers for a minute, smiling at all of us. He then puts a white glove onto his hand and walks to my cell. I don't cower away, I stand and stare straight back at him with a look of what I hope conveys pure fury and loathing. He smiles.  
"Miss Everdeen… how lovely to see you again. I must say I don't believe any of us foresaw that little trick you pulled in the arena. Well done," he says, clapping his hands softly together, twice. He moves on to Johanna's cell, across from me. She stands on the side and turns her head toward him, acting as though above him, which she is. I rank him a little lower than a gutter rat.

"Miss Mason. What a delightful sight you are. Beauty emanates from you! However, you were always one who favored the trickery of deceit," he smiles at her, smugly. She spits at him.

"Fuck you. Go to Hell." She says. He chuckles a bit before moving on.

"Peeta, my boy- do tell how you allowed Katniss to fall so out of place. Why did you allow her to set her foot out of line? We wouldn't be having this conversation if you hadn't!" he says.

"I'm not like you. I don't control others. I let them make their own choices. And for what it's worth, I stand by Katniss completely," Peeta says, with a dignified stare. This seems to anger President Snow the most. He allows his smile to falter and instead, shows his teeth in a threatening stare. He reaches through the bars slowly to touch Peeta's face. I try to object, but then I see that he's just caressing his chin. Suddenly he clutches his face and doesn't let go. Peeta's skin goes red and he starts wailing. The peacekeepers keep their places. I start to scream obscenities at Snow.

"You son of a bitch! Get off him! Fuck you! Get off him, you son of a bitch!" I scream. Johanna screams so loudly that I cover my ears. She doesn't stop and her voice doesn't break either. President Snow turns to look at her, releasing Peeta. She backs away from the bars, as do I. He stands between our cells and turns his head at intervals, watching both of us, his smile reappearing. In the corner of my eye, I see Peeta massaging his chin.

"I predict we'll be having an enjoyable time together," he says with a sadistic smile as he turns and walks from the room. Each peacekeeper then turns and walks out after him, the door sliding closed behind them. Both Johanna and me sit down on a small bench that is identical in each cell. Peeta paces around his. We remain silent, all in deep thought. What's going to happen next? Are we just going to sit in here and dehydrate and starve? No. If they wanted to kill us like that they would've left us in the arena. They're probably going to torture us for information. The problem is, I don't know any. Only Johanna has information about the rebellion. I fear what's going to happen when I tell them I don't know anything. And then I remember Peeta is just as clueless as I am. We are both in for a world of pain. Would Johanna give up information to the Capitol or hold her ground? I answer my own question: it's Johanna Mason. We're sitting in silence for about an hour when Johanna shatters it by screaming to the ceiling with obscenities. She takes hold of her bars and starts shaking herself against them, as though trying to pull them away. Peeta and I are both calmly watching her.

"If you don't shut up, I'm going to shove the back of this gun into the back of your head," says a voice behind us. We hadn't realized someone had opened the door. It was a tall, dark man with hair cut down almost to his skull. He had a fierce, angry look on his face.

"What time is it?" I ask.

"We're not answering any questions," he says, and then promptly walks out of the room, the door sliding closed behind him. Johanna sits against the bars, watching door. The rest of the day or night passes uneventful and we all grow tired. The lights in the room go out. I didn't realize that the walls were actually lights until it was revealed that they were just panels. It was pitch-black in the room so we told each other goodnight for comfort and lay down on the hard bench to fall asleep. I wake up to the bright panels again and find Johanna staring, wide eyed at me. There are bags under her eyes. Peeta is still sleeping.

"Did you get any sleep?" I ask. She shakes her head.

"My anxiety…" she says. Just then, the door slides open and three peacekeepers walk in, waking Peeta up. They are each holding a white paper bag.

"Checks," one of them says. They each walk up to the bars of our cells and pass the bags through. I open mine up to reveal a cold meal. I see what looks like a dry piece of shriveled up meat and peas next to it. These Capitol people think we are getting low-quality food because we are prisoners. What they don't know (or do they?) is that this would be a luxury meal in District 12. I shovel up the food, as do Johanna and Peeta. The peacekeepers take the empty bags and foil trays. After more waiting, the peacekeepers come in again. Surely it's not just this. Just preserving our lives within an inch of death so that we are in horrible pain constantly? What was the point of taking us out of the arena in the first place? That's when I see they don't have bags.

"Checks," one says.

I'm just about to approach the bars to ask another question, when Johanna's peacekeepers slams the but of his gun straight into her nose through the bars.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

I utter a small scream of shock. Johanna is thrown back from the bars with the pain and I see blood explode from her nose. She's wailing. Peeta is hitting the bars with his hands as hard as possible trying to attract attention, and I'm staring at the looks the peacekeepers have on their faces. They look more than angry. They are livid. I don't know why. President Snow walks in with that annoying smile on his face.

"Good afternoon," he says, his voice with a hint of danger. His eyes narrow toward me.

"You fucking assholes! Try it again! Try it again you fucking assholes!" she screams, in anger. She walks up to the bars, one hand on her most likely broken nose. She starts banging her hands against them. The peacekeeper thrusts his weapon through the bars again and she seizes it. She won't let go, and neither will he. That's when a second peacekeeper reaches into a back pocket of his uniform and pulls out a small black rectangular device. He presses a button on the side and I hear the familiar buzz of electricity. He puts it through the bars and Johanna watches it in fear as he quickly thrusts it against her neck. I see her eyes roll into the back of her head and she falls to the ground, motionless. I assume the worst. How powerful was that shock? The peacekeeper turns to face me, his device still humming with electricity. I back away from the bars in fear, yet a somewhat defiant expression remains on my face. Peeta, too, retreats to sit on the bench and is now watching Snow, with Snow watching him. Their stares are mutually hateful.

"Unlock his cell," he motions towards Peeta and a guard walks towards the bars. The screams come out of my mouth before I myself realise that I'm making the noise. I'm trying somehow to get to him. They roughly pull him out of the cell and another peacekeeper walks in with a large, silver bucket. It seems to be weighing him down. Only Peeta can see what's inside it, as it's angled away from me. He turns to me with a resigned look.

"What is it? What is it, Peeta?" I scream at him in fear. I turn to President Snow and start screaming at him. I'm doing all I can to delay Peeta's pain or even death.

"Your turn will come soon, Katniss," he says, "The Mockingjay isn't as strong without people who will die for her is she? Now we can see what you truly are: a selfish coward. All you want is to live. You don't care about anyone else," he sneers as the peacekeeper places the bucket down in front of Peeta and then forces him to kneel in front of it.  
"Get off of him! Get off him right now!" I scream.

"Or what?" President Snow teases. He turns to the peacekeeper positioned behind Peeta and authoritatively nods. The peacekeeper immediately places his gun into it's holster and forces Peeta's hands behind his back and his head into the liquid inside the bucket. I can't stop screaming. After about twenty seconds they bring his head back up out of the bucket and he's coughing and spluttering. I'm screaming at both the peacekeepers and Snow, trying to make them stop. But nothing will stop them.

"It's only a little water," says Snow with a shrug, "there's much worse to come."

They dunk Peeta inside the water several more times and then Snow starts to talk.

"What do you know about the rebels? Where are they hidden? Are they in District 13? How are they getting weapons?" he asks.

"Don't…know," Peeta barely splutters this out before they forcefully dunk his head back inside the bucket. I can see bubbles crazily coming out of it; Peeta's screams are still coherent, even with the water.

"Tell me now, otherwise we will kill you," says Snow.

"I told you… I don't… know…anything," he says, breathing heavily. Yet again, they dunk him in the water. I've stopped screaming and now I'm staring in horror with tears gushing down my face.

"Told you… don't…know…Katniss," he says, looking at me pleadingly. He doesn't have time to utter another word. They throw his head back in there. I'm horrified… scarred… I've never seen anything worse than this. He needs my help. I have to help him. But how? I stare around me. I need a way to get out. To get through the peacekeepers and to get to him. When they bring him up, he's spluttering and desperately gasping for breath. I realise there's no way that I can get out of here- the only way I can get Peeta out of this is to talk Snow out of it. And I'm not the best at talking.

"Where are the rebels, Peeta? You know, don't you?" says Snow. Before he answers, he takes time to regain his breath. I don't think he can take much more of this before he gives up.

"I don't know! I don't know anything! I already told you I don't know! What does it take for you to believe me! I don't know anything about the rebels!" he screamed in fury. I had never heard Peeta take this tone on before. President Snow gestures toward the cell with his head. To my relief, they bring Peeta up and rub his face with a towel. They shove him toward the cell. He lies down on his bed and starts to cry. Then, they open my cell.

"No… no," Peeta says, in horror. I let them take me. Except they take the bucket away.

"You're a bit more durable than Peeta, aren't you dear?" asks Snow, mockingly.

"What?" He inclines his head towards the bars of an empty cell. I see the peacekeepers tying four short ropes in different positions. Then, they herd me over to the bars and tie one rope to each limb. I'm helpless. There's nothing I can do but sit here while they torture me. What are they going to do? Do they have an array of knives that they are going to slice my skin up with? There is no way to prepare for torture or pain beyond knowledge. You just have to resign yourself to the fact that you will be experiencing that. That's all there is to it- it's the only way to be ready. Or as ready as you can ever be. I see each of the four peacekeepers pull out the same electronic device, which I heard one of them call a taser, from their back pockets. They walk over to me and shock me three or four times. Each time, my body is seized by a kind of panic and I start to tremble… no, not tremble… shake…I shake with excitement. I scream during all this. Peeta is screaming his head off, just like I was while he was being tortured. Johanna was silent up until this point. Maybe she didn't feel that Peeta was worth protesting for, but since I was her precious Mockingjay, she had to do something.

"Get your filthy hands off her right now, or I swear, I will kill you with my bare hands when I get out of here," she says, with a loathing tone.

"Miss Mason, I don't want to be pessimistic, but I doubt you'll ever get out of here," Snow remarks, with a hateful sneer.

"I swear if you don't lay off her, I will fucking kill you painfully," she says. Snow ignores this, but turns his attention upon me. My ears are ringing, and I can see sparks. I stare up at the ceiling, for fear that if I move my head, or any other part of my body for that matter, some enormous pain will seize me.

"Miss Everdeen, I hope you are more willing than Mr Mellark to divulge the location of the rebels… or perhaps you know where they are getting their weaponry from? Anything you know, please tell us, or you will be permanently damaged after this torture session… and there is more to come," says Snow. He's trying to make me scared.

"I don't know anything either," I say, and feel another shock on the underside of my elbow, where my tracker would be.

"It would be real shame if you died before we found anything out, Katniss. Tell us what you know," he says, a little more sternly, as he can tell that I am just as adamant as Peeta to keep information to myself. And yet, I don't even know any information.

"Don't you understand? I don't know anything. They probably kept it from us because, with the constant cameras and microphones around, it would be too difficult for us to keep it a secret- too risky for us to have knowledge about it. Don't you understand that?" I ask, almost pleadingly, but more with anger. He sneers and makes an impatient noise and, with another gesture from President Snow, they let me go. Ironically, Johanna, the only one who actually knows something, is not called upon to reveal information, but rather left alone in her cell, to wallow in a small pool of her blood. This torture goes on for days and days, with the peacekeepers continuously inventing new ways to torture us into almost unbearable pain. These included, slicing us with knives, putting a pipe into our mouths with a brown, disgusting liquid coming into our bodies, and more shocks. After the peacekeepers had tortured Johanna on what I assume was the second day after out very first torture, to no avail, they had turned on very powerful hoses to wash the blood away into a drain at the end of the small hall. I watch as the water separated the red blood cells and, soon, the water and blood become one, intermingled and mixed forever. The mixture trickles down the drain and the floor is gleaming white again. The peacekeepers then leave the hall and we are left alone. Johanna can't lie down or sit, she merely stands, as she has cuts all over her body. It would be too painful for her to sit on them.

"We're getting out of here," she says.

"How?" I ask. She inclines her head toward my cell and, to my astonishment; I see that they had forgotten to lock me back up.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Relief washes over me, but closely followed by fear. How am I going to get us out of here? I can't unlock their cells and I certainly can't take down three or four or however many peacekeepers come through that sliding door. Do they think I'm something more than I really am? The Mockingjay is a symbol of the rebellion… a symbol of strength. Have they allowed their hopes to take over their sense of reality?

"I can't… take down the peacekeepers that come through that door, Johanna," I say. Her hopeful expression is shattered.

"But… you can try…" she suggests, feebly.

"No… I can't… It will result in a lot more torture and pain. What makes you think I can do it?" I ask the question that heavily hangs in the air. She shrugs and retreats to the wall of her cell, clearly, I have shattered her false illusion of hope. Peeta remains silent the whole time. In the end, I turn away from her crying face and lie down on the bench. Peeta is still sitting against the bars, silently sad. I turn my back on both of them and let the tears run down my cheeks. I try to be as quiet as possible. The lights go out and the room is dark. This alleviates some of the stress I felt. I don't know how but the darkness offers a sense of comfort. After maybe fifteen or twenty minutes, the door slides open. A solitary peacekeeper walks in and approaches my cell, shining the light of the torch attached to his gun in my eyes. He sees that I'm behaving somewhat normally (for a prisoner anyway) and turns toward Johanna's cell. She is turned away from him, unmoving.

"Checks," he says, looking in at her, "Checks!" he shouts, as she doesn't stir. What's wrong with her? I jump up from the bench, as does Peeta. We both push our faces against the bars, watching as the peacekeeper places his gun in its holster and takes a ring of keys off his waistline. He flips to one, unlocks the cage and cautiously walks in. This was his mistake. Johanna quickly turns when he gets near enough and sends a punch flying right into his nose. He yelps in pain and turns to face me through the bars of Johanna's cell. A trickle of blood is flowing from his nose.

"Bitch," he says, surprisingly calmly, turning around and pulling his gun out of the holster.

"Snow said to keep you alive as long as we can get information out of you. It doesn't seem like you're giving up. Let's end your struggle now, eh?" He doesn't get a chance to shoot her. I fling the door of the cell open. He quickly spins at the sound of it and a look of shock is on his face- I have the element of surprise. I hear the rattle of the lock on Peeta's cell. He's desperately shaking it, trying to free himself. I don't spare him a look. Instead, I have just enough time to run into Johanna's cell and dive at the peacekeeper, sending him flying into the bench. He moans as I quickly get up off him and take his gun from his now weak hands. I hit him on the head. Once, twice, three times and he's knocked out. We have to move fast. There are probably cameras inside this room with peacekeepers watching our every move. We'll be lucky if they haven't seen what's going on by now. And sure enough, I hear the frantic shuffling of footsteps up above me.

"Johanna! Go and close the door. All you need to do is grab his card and scan it at the door!" I say, taking the security card out of the peacekeepers pocket and tossing it to Johanna, already out of the cell. She runs to the door and scans the card, effectively shutting it and giving the others no way to get in. It'll buy us a little time- at least enough for us to find some kind of back up plan while they find a way to get in. I take the ring of keys out of the peacekeeper's hands and run over to Peeta's cell. My hands are shaking, panicked. I try about five keys before I unlock the cell. He jumps out and the first thing he does is plant a kiss on my lips. I kiss back for a little bit.

"What the hell are you two doing? Why don't you start thinking of a way to get us out of here- then you can kiss all you want!" she shouts. She has a point. We run to the door that Johanna is guarding. It just so happens to be the only way out. And there are about ten peacekeepers on the other side of it.

"Get the universal card! Hurry up! Go! Jonathon might already be dead!" shouts one of the peacekeepers. There are occasional bashings of the door, as though they believe they can get in here by hitting the door down. Before we have time to think of a plan, I hear the panicked footsteps above me again. They are running around the room. I then hear them running away from it. They must have the universal card now. There's nothing left to do. I grab the gun that I previously used to knock the peacekeeper out… Jonathon.

"Get behind me," I say, pointing the gun at the door, with Johanna and Peeta fearfully positioning themselves behind me. The door slides open and about ten peacekeepers and President Snow fly in. When they see I have a gun, they stop in their places. President Snow edges behind a peacekeeper.

"Who were you calling a coward, asshole?" said Johanna.

"Wise words- they will most likely be your last, Johanna Mason," says Snow, loathingly.

"I doubt that those will be her last words," I say, inching the gun upward a bit. They flinch back slightly. The power I wield is inexplicable. The peacekeepers that were once so dominant and cruel toward me now cower in my wake… and President Snow is almost buckling at the knees with fear. I line up the scope of the gun with my sights, aiming it at Snow.

"Katniss!" shouts Peeta, frantically. He dives in front of me, but too late. The bullet hit me in the thigh. I'm hoping it's just a flesh wound. I was so focused on shooting President Snow that I didn't notice the peacekeeper to his right pull out a smaller gun. He even had time to aim. The peacekeepers take advantage of my weakness. Johanna and Peeta try to fight them off but last less than ten seconds. The peacekeepers were jus too powerful. There is a scramble as we are all separated from each other and peacekeeper Jonathon is dragged out of Johanna's cell. We are then all placed in our original, individual cells and mine is surely locked this time. We don't even fight against them. They have won. We have lost. We didn't even have a standing chance. Who was I to think I could take on a hoard of peacekeepers. And even if we had miraculously gotten out of whatever this place is, where would we go next? Flee into the black mountains surrounding the Capitol? It would be just like Gale and I always talked about. Except that I knew the forest outside District 12. I have no knowledge of how we would get food or water from the almost isolated mountains near the Capitol. It seems that it wasn't just Johanna and Peeta who had gotten their hopes up about this escape. Amazingly, we remain un-tortured for about ten or twelve hours- or so I predict. That's when the door slides open. Peacekeeper Jonathon walks in with three others. There is a nasty bruise under his eye and near his cheekbone where Johanna punched him and cuts that were yet to be healed from where I hit him with his own gun. He stares around at us in complete and utter hate. The three peacekeepers are carrying a television between them. They set it down in the middle of the room, pointed at an angle where we can all see, turn it on and leave. All that's on right now is Caesar Flickerman talking about the tragedy of the Games. Then, he introduces a very 'special' guest, President Snow. I edge closer toward the bars to get a better look at the television.

"Thank you Caesar," he says.

"So Mr. President, what was it that made you come down here today? It was completely unprecedented by us as well folks- we're just as out of the blue as you!" he squeals, excitedly. And yet, I feel as though I can sense a tone of worry. Why would he be worried?

"Well, I came to tell the people of the Capitol that we found Miss Everdeen, Mr. Mellark and Miss Mason inside the arena and they are now safe in the Capitol," he says with a charismatic smile to waves of cheering from the Capitol people in the seats. He gestures with his hand for the crowd to quiet down. I see him take on a sterner demeanor. "However, they did attempt something quite sinister last night. It seems that they are a little shocked from the explosion," says Snow.

"Bullshit," says Johanna, spitting at the television.

"Even so, this is no excuse for breaking the law. And it was a very important law they attempted to break. So it is with a heavy heart that I came here to announce that their executions are scheduled for tomorrow at the break of dawn at Hanging Rock."


End file.
